To gear or not to gear...

[TL01dude]

How can I tell if my car (TL01) is over/under geared? I recently installed a Traxxas XL-1 ESC in my car and ever since I did, I have had nothing but problems with the car. The car drives great for a couple of laps then the car starts going crazy on its own. I check the ESC and it is quite hot. The battery stick itself also is very hot too. I have a Trinity Speed Gem Sapphire 17T single in the car. The ESC is supposed to be good until 16T. i have the stock 19T pinion gear on the motor (The one that came with the stock 540 motor) Is this bad? When I ran the Mechanical SC I never had a problem. Am I getting to much current drawn through the ESC that it is cutting out after a couple of laps? Is it typical of an ESC to make the car take off by itself after it gets hot after running? Please help http://www.rccaraction.com/ubb/confused.gif

[TL01dude]

I forgot to mention that i am running 1600 and 1800 packs in the car.

[Nairb]

Modified motors always need smaller pinion gears than stock motors. If I were you, I'd use a pinion that is at least two teeth smaller. That will be easier on your motor, battery , AND ESC.

[TL01dude]

So maybe a 17tooth pinion should do the trick? How will the car react to a lower gear? Will it now have more top end and less low end punch?

[JoeTheShmoe]

other way around. Accel. faster and lower top speed.

[Nairb]

Yes, what the SCHMOE said. Modified motors more than make up for the loss in RPMs, though.

[TL01dude]

I just bought a 18tooth pinion gear and I cannot mesh the gears properly. On the TL01 there are screw holes were you should mount the motor. There are the numbers 19, 21 and 25 for the number of teeth on the gear. Does this mean I cannot put a small tooth gear than 19? What would happen to the car if I installed a 21 or 25 tooth pinion. Would the ESC overheat even more?

[tc3guy]

If you cant put in a smaller pinion gear you should put in a bigger spur gear this will do the same thing as putting a smaller pinion gear in. sorry but i dont know wich spur gear to put in. Consult someone at your LHS. ( local hobby store)

[This message has been edited by tc3guy (edited 02-17-2001).]

[2nd Gear]

Try to fix it with adjusting your timing,Maybe its to advanced

[JP]

Most of you are really, really confusing.

No it isnt normal for a hot ESC to take off on its own.

Go down 2 pinion teeth, or 4 spur gear teeth.

ESC's make the car accel faster, higher top speed, longer run time, less weight, and less heat.

Go down 2 pinions or 4 spur gear teeth and you should be fine, if not, start a new topic and we'll reply.

[projectstampedebuilder]

What would an esc have any thing to do with your car going "crazy " it's not caused by over gearing , it's caused by interference by something else, etheir the way you ran the wires or you didn't install 0.1uf capacitors. To know if you over geared your car put your finger on the motor can after a run , if you can't hold it there for no more then 5 seconds then it's over geared.

[TL01dude]

There is no way i can put my finger on the can for more than 1 second. I think it is way to hot. My friend has the same ESC in his car (TL01) and he has no problem with his. He runs the same batteries as I. The only difference is his motor is a 16T triple Kyosho Mega motor. Most often, the car goes "crazy" after I tap the wall or after a collision with another car. After that happens and even during my runs the steering trim suddenly is way of all buy itself even though I never touched it. It almost seem like there is someone with the same frequency as me, but it can't keep happening every time I run the car. Maybe I have a defective ESC. It gets really embarrasing when the car takes off on my and slams into other racers like a mad man and I have to apoligize to these guys because I don't know what is wrong with my car :(

[tc3guy]

Maybe you got your reciever wet somehow but thats the only thing I can think of. If my esc gets too hot it has something called like heat overload protection but it works I don't know if the traxass one does.

[ammoace]

As far the operating problems I had a simular problem with my T-Maxx. It ended up being two things. There were two wires that were chaffed, bare wire showing, and the receiver batteries were low. The chaffed wires were contacting the chassis and the motor. I know you have an electric motor but this shouldn't matter since we are both using an ESC. Also there was a tell tale "twitching" in the steering servo when I moved the truck around as the chaffed wires grounded out. A short in the wiring is the first thing I would check. It is a lot cheaper to buy a roll of electrical tape than new pinions, motors, etc..... The only thing is I didn't check to see if the ESC was overheating since it is in a box.
Hope this helps,
AMMOACE

[TC3~Racer]

TOL1 dude,

I had a TOL1 so i understand that u cannot really go down from a 19 pinnon or up teeth on the spur becuause of the way the car is. However Thunder Tech makes an adjustable motor mount for tamaiya vehicles that includes everything to make gear mesh fully adjustabel. This way u could go down to a 17 or 18. It fits the Tamiya Clod Buster, Wild Dagger, FRog and Blackfoot and they also sell a universial one. The wild dagger uses a similar gearbox to the TOL1 i believe so it may work but i am not sure so the universial one would probably be your best bet

[TC3~Racer]

I also had the problem that seemed like the trim was way off after a hit TOL1 dude. I think it might be something to do with how the sevro goes directly to the hubcarriers...
Anyways i think my sevro had a tooth or two missing inside. I got a replacement metal gear servo and didnt have the problem anymore